LOVE WARRIOR NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!

LOVE WARRIOR NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!

LOVE FLASH MOB!! Together Rising Goes Global!!

Since Together Rising began, we’ve raised over a million dollars to lift up our community. Today—we overflow beyond our borders. Today, we flood the world with our love.

There has never been a Love Flash Mob closer to my heart than this one. We need more of you and more passion and more follow through than we’ve ever needed before. There are hurting/AMAZING women watching us this minute— hoping that you will care enough to help get them the care they deserve. I’ll be here sweating and praying and suffocating from hope and fear in my house. You—please—read and let your heart guide you.

Let us begin:

You know my precious friend, Tara. Tara is a midwife at a maternity center called Heartline in Port au Prince, Haiti. She helps Haitian women—who have no clean, safe, loving place to welcome their infant sons and daughters—give birth with dignity. Tara saves lives and loves mamas and gives her whole heart and her whole life to her calling. This one: Joy. Service. I know love when I see it. Tara and her family are love.

Months ago Tara wrote this about a teenager who had visited Heartline:

I couldn’t stop thinking about Asline. An hour later I sent Tara this message:

Me: Please Tara, tell me what Asline needs that I have to offer.

Tara: Asline burst into tears when she found out she was pregnant. We just hugged while she cried. I just said, “You are not the first young mom. I was a young mom – we have other young moms in the program” I asked her to come meet with me Thanksgiving morning at 10:30. Once I meet with her Thursday I will write you again. Pray that she just shows up. Off to program — today all the moms with babies born already come — super fun because these are all moms that were offered a chance to give birth and keep their kids out of an orphanage and they are all kicking ass at loving their babies.

Me: Okay- you go be with the mamas. I’ll wait to hear what’s next for Asline. I’ll pray she just shows up. Love you.

But that next Thursday, Thanksgiving, Asline did not show up. She didn’t come the next week, or the week after that. We wondered if it might be time to give up hoping. Then, the day after Christmas, this message popped into my inbox from Tara:

Tara: Friend!!!! Asline showed up today!!!! I’m giddy. Her sister gave her medicine against her will to try to get the baby out — but she was upset by it — she came today and is 11 weeks pregnant. She cried when she heard the heartbeat. And she is saying she will come back weekly and deliver here. Thanks for praying for her!!

I don’t really understand prayer. I usually forget to do it altogether. But something made me keep praying for Asline. And a few weeks later, I found myself messaging Tara again.

Me: Does Heartline need anything?

Tara: Yes, we do. We need more room. We are having to turn away too many women.

Me: What if we raised money for you to add on to the Maternity Center and add nurses?

Tara: That would be amazing, but you need to come and see if this work is right for you. Come and see.

Me: To Haiti? No thank you, I mostly want to (forget to) pray for Haiti from my couch in Naples.

But Tara kept saying that she really thought I should come. And I kept saying no. She said please and I said no. Finally, she said: Glennon. Just show up.

Tricky smart Tara, using those words against me.

That’s how Amy and I ended up in Haiti.***

When we arrived last month, Heartline’s midwife team picked us up at the airport and took us to the government-run hospital where many mothers deliver their babies. We needed to see firsthand why Heartline’s work is so desperately needed. As we drove, I kept thinking: it looks like the earthquake happened yesterday. But there was so much LIFE. So much beautiful life, so much brutal poverty. And/Both. Haiti is Brutiful.

We entered a gate flanked by armed guards, parked our ambulance, and entered a hospital that felt like a prison. We walked over slippery concrete floors and through suffocating heat, but no warmth. We went into the maternity rooms to see lines of sheet-less mattresses on metal frames. Women were laid on the beds in various stages of labor. One was in active labor, two had babies laid out next to them on the dirty mattresses, one was silently crying because she had just lost her baby. I saw no doctors while we were there, no nurses. There was no one to explain to these women what was happening to their bodies or to their babies. And there was no one to serve them. If a patient needs food, the family has to bring it. If a woman needs water, her family has to bring it. If an IV or medication of any kind is needed—the families already living in unimaginable poverty must find a pharmacy, buy an IV or medicine, and bring it to the hospital. So the women just go without. They go without food, water, and medicine. So many hurting women, so many new babies—and it was so quiet. We heard no moaning, no crying from the mamas or even from the babies. It turns out there is no reason to cry if there is no hope of help.

But then there were the midwives. Beth and KJ and Tara. They walked from bed to bed, holding women’s hands, hearing their stories, speaking to them softly in their native creole. Talking to them about breast-feeding and telling them, each and every woman they met, about Heartline’s free family planning classes and free birth control. Praying with them when they asked. Holding them if they cried. Laughing with the ones who could laugh.

Amy and I were silent as we climbed back into the car. As we pulled away from the hospital, Tara looked us and said, “And that’s why Beth started the Maternity Center.”

Beth and her husband moved to Haiti 26 years ago and right away – Beth used her degree in child development to open an orphanage. Beth cried as she told us about fathers and grandmothers who showed up at her orphanage’s gate with children hanging on their legs and newborn babies in their arms. The fathers would hold out their babies and say: “Please, take her. Give her food and get her to someone who can give her a life.” Beth would learn—over and over again—that the child’s mother had just died in childbirth. So many times this was the story—the baby’s mother is dead.

Beth listened closely. With a broken heart, she took the babies in and worked to complete their adoptions.

Running is one of Beth’s spiritual practices- she runs through the streets of Haiti, talking to God and listening hard. This running time is when she began to understand that she needed to back up a step. She needed to help mothers in childbirth and before childbirth and after childbirth so that they could live. So that they could keep and love and raise their babies. These babies didn’t need an orphanage, they needed their mamas. After a long season of listening, Beth decided to act. At 50, she started midwifery school. Then she came back and opened Heartline Maternity Center. At first she walked from Haitian door to Haitian door and asking—Are you pregnant? Is anyone pregnant here? If so, please come. I can help. Just show up.

We sat and took in Beth’s story, and then turned to KJ. KJ is 26 years old and was raised as the oldest of twelve kids in a very traditional family. But at an early age KJ felt a stirring, a knowing that her life would follow an non-traditional path. During high school, she went to Africa and fell in love with loving underserved people. She knew she wanted to serve. She came home and searched the internet until she found a website for a midwifery school in the Philippines. She looked at it and decided: I need to go there. So she graduated early and when she was seventeen years old she left her home and her parents and everything she knew and went to the Philippines.

What are you going to do there? Her mom said.

I guess I’m just going to show up, KJ said.

Beth was fifty when she followed her knowing. KJ was seventeen. Let us never say it is too late or too early to start showing up.

After dinner, Amy and I went to our hotel room which was lovely except for a cockroach the size of a quarter pounder on the coffee table. Amy threw a tissue box on top of it and we walked around it for two days. I still can’t talk about it. Relief work is scary.

The next morning, Tara picked us up early to take us to Heartline. On the way, she explained that since Heartline has limited space, most of the mamas they serve are teenage, first-time mothers, or older mothers who have already delivered many babies. These are the women most likely to have complications that could lead to death during delivery, leaving their children orphaned. Tara also told us that in addition to pre- and post- natal care, family planning is a core part of Heartline’s work. Poverty can be defined as a lack of choices, and in a society marked by high levels of infidelity, violence against women and spousal rape, giving woman access to birth control gives them the choice to determine their future and to live a healthy life for the children they already have. To quote the wise words of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: “Every woman and girl deserves the chance to determine her own future.”

After a short drive, we pulled up to Heartline and the guarded gate opened. We left the rubble and traffic of Haiti behind and entered the oasis of the Heartline campus. Trees surrounding the building offer shade and pick up the breeze and the walls are painted bright with beautiful murals of Haitian mamas and babies. There is beauty there. Beauty is something that is harder to find outside the gate. Not impossible, but harder because there is so much pain that jumps out at you first.

The first thing that Tara did when we walked in was introduce us to the Haitian staff. Heartline believes in Haitian serving Haitians, so this is a priority for them.

Next we greeted a large of group of women with shy smiles and big, beautiful bellies, and then we walked down to Tara and KJ’s exam room. Signs and paintings covered the walls. This one stopped me in my tracks.

Ascribe Unsurpassable Worth. This is Heartline’s motto, their mantra, their reason for being. Beth told us, “If you are a poor woman here, it is easy to be overlooked, taken advantage of and unknown. It’s different at Heartline. We know each woman by name, we know her story and we love her. That’s the difference. The women are loved here.”

Unsurpassable worth.

Then we went into Beth’s room. You see that picture on the wall, the painting on the left? It’s one of the mamas who gave birth last year to her eighth child. Her first seven babies died. But she came to the maternity center, and because of Heartline’s careful care and attention, her eighth baby lived. She lived. This mama now has a baby to hold, because of Heartline.

We spent the rest of the day quietly watching—smiling and nodding and oohing and ahhing with the moms, observing the careful care provided to all the women by the midwives and the staff. How they measured their patients’ progress, delighted with them over strong heartbeats, answered questions, provided meals.

(This is MarieCianne. She is a blind, Haitian pregnant mama. She teaches braille for a living. She did not stop smiling the whole live long day. Just thought you should know.)

During our last few hours at the clinic, we were joined by another Heartline visitor, an ob-gyn from Vanderbilt University named Dr. Chris Sizemore. Chris first came to Haiti after the earthquake and met the Heartline staff at the field hospital they erected inside the rubble to care for the earthquake victims. Dr. Sizemore told us, “Heartline does some of the best work I’ve ever seen. The care they give, the expertise, the respect for these women—they are doing it right.”

For the very last appointment of the day, Tara ushered a quiet, scared woman into the exam room. We greeted her and she nodded without meeting our eyes. Tara explained to us quietly that weeks before, when she was ten weeks pregnant, she’d been severely beaten by her husband. She moved in with her mother but since that day, she’d been terrified that her baby was hurt, or worse. When she heard that Dr. Chris was in the office doing ultrasounds, she came to Tara and said: “Please ask him to look at my baby. I am afraid. Please tell me if my baby is okay.”

Chris started the exam while Tara held the woman’s hand and followed along. We all held our breath. I prayed: please please please please please.

Chris spent careful time looking over every aspect of the ultrasound. It felt like one million hours. Then he smiled, looked right at the woman and said, “Your baby is perfect. Perfectly healthy. And you’re having a boy.”

And the woman’s face lit up like the sun. And we all breathed.

Afterwards I just stared at Tara. She said Every day. This is what it’s like here every day.

Every day (and throughout the long nights), the women of Heartline pour out their lives for moments like this. So that mamas can hear they have healthy babies, and babies can grow up in their mothers’ arms. Haiti has the highest rate of maternal and infant mortality in the Western Hemisphere. Two out of 3 childbirths in Haiti occur without a skilled birth attendant. One in 83 Haitian women will die as a result of childbirth. Yet, Heartline has never lost a mother. But due to too-little capacity and resources, Heartline is forced to turn away more women than they can serve. Each year Heartline is forced to say no to hundreds of women desperate for a safe place to start their child’s life and their motherhood.

I decided to visit Heartline because I wanted to see the work with my own eyes, and also because I was a little bit worried about the religious aspect. I am a self proclaimed Jesus freak- but I am wholly uninterested in any organization that is trading love for Jesus. I only want to work with people who love without agenda or ulterior motive. I am more skeptical about this than any atheist I’ve ever met- my team will tell you that. I am the leader of this beautiful, diverse community made of all faiths and those who understand the world in ways unrelated to faith. So my job is to look at Love Work with ALL of our eyes. And I can tell you that if you believe in Love, you’d believe Heartline’s work. This work of fiercely and tenderly serving women and children. The work of loving the vulnerable and the marginalized and the forgotten like they are the most beloved creatures on Earth—cherished, adored, valued—because that is the truth. There is no trading service for religion here. Love with no strings attached is the agenda.

Here’s where we come in.

The midwives of Heartline desperately want to add another wing to their beautiful maternity center. They want more exam rooms, more postpartum rooms, more teaching rooms. They want to stop turning so many women away who are desperate to bring their babies into the world in safety and dignity.

So we are going to build it for them.

The architects have drawn up the plans. The contractors are standing by. The midwives are watching. The mamas are waiting.

For US. For YOU.

Here’s the spot. Here is where the haven for our sisters will be. This is the spot upon which LOVE WILL BUILD.

If we raise the funds needed today- LOVE WILL START BUILDING IN TWO WEEKS.

Our sisters at Heartline have been brave and mighty and vulnerable enough to be open to our service. They have said: Will you help? Please, let us answer them: YES. YES because you deserve to deliver your precious baby safely and watch her grow. YES because

you are a woman of unsurpassable worth.

Here’s a picture of a birthing room at Heartline. See that line in Creole? It says, “She believed she could, so she did.”

And finally, meet baby Sarah. Sarah’s mommy and daddy suffered two mid-pregnancy losses before she was born. Sarah’s mom and dad let us borrow her for a minute, and while we were taking these pictures, Amy started crying. That doesn’t happen often—she’s pretty steady-eddy. “What’s up?” I asked. Amy told me that she was thinking about all those years I’d spent heartbroken about the dead ends of my adoption dream. She said watching me hold Sarah, she wondered if maybe God put that dream in my heart so it would lead us here—to help these mamas keep their babies. Because the only thing more beautiful than adoption is having no need for it.

God showed up.

Beth showed up.

Tara showed up.

KJ showed up.

Amy and I showed up.

And these women—they show up everyday.

Everybody’s just waiting to see if you will show up.

You guys. Let’s get the women of Heartline Rising—TOGETHER.

READY? HERE’S HOW LOVE WILL WIN:

DONATE. You can make your tax-deductible donation by clicking here or on the Love Flash Mob button at the bottom of this post. Give what you can—small gifts of $5, $15, or $25 max. We can’t do great things, but today we’re making miracles happen through small gifts given with great love. REMEMBER THAT EVERY DONATION MATTERS. Click here to see the miracles you have made through prior Love Flash Mobs. Because Together Rising is an official 501(c)3, every penny of your donation is tax deductible. And, you can be assured that if the funds raised exceed what Heartine needs for this project, all of your money will go toward serving women and families in crisis.

SHARE, SHARE, SHARE. PLEASE SHARE THIS POST. Use the links at the bottom of this post to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the other ones I don’t know about. Mass e-mail your friends, call your parents, stand in your yard and read the essay loudly – whatever it takes. We need all the whos in whoville – the tall and the small. We need our entire village today.

DEDICATE. Every single one of us knows a warrior woman or baby. If you’d like to donate in honor of someone you love, please leave her name in the comments here or on Facebook.

Okay. It’s time for me to let you go and trust. Your board will be busy trying to breathe and calling each other and refreshing our screens one million times, sacred scared to death. In a few hours, we will give you an update. CMMMMMON LOVE: WIN!!!!

***Of course, Amy and I paid our own way to Haiti. None of your donations to Together Rising were used for this trip or any other trip. As has always been the case, your Board covers Together Rising’s overhead costs so that every penny you give goes to families in need.

!!!!!!!!!!!!! UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

LISTEN TO ME. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS. YOU ARE NOT NOT NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS.

On our last night in Haiti, Amy and I were eating dinner at Tara’s house and KJ mentioned her friend, Ann — a midwife in Berlin on the front lines every day, helping to serve women and children Syrian refugees. Amy’s eyes got big and she looked over at me and with my eyes I said to her: Sister. No. Focus. We are in HAITI. For Heartline.

Later that night, we lay in our hotel room and before I could fall asleep Amy said into the darkness: We should help them, too. And I said: I know. But not now. Next time. Next Love Flash Mob. We have to do the next right thing, one thing at a time. Heartline is the next right thing, and the numbers we need for these sisters are BIG. They have unsurpassable worth. We have to wait.

Amy said, Yes, you’re right. Then as soon as we got home from Haiti — she reached out to Ann behind my back, of course. Love will sometimes cheat a little to win, it turns out. A week later Amy forwarded this letter to me from Ann:

“Every day Berlin sees an unprecedented number of refugees coming to our city. Many that finally reach Berlin have been in dire conditions for weeks and in Berlin they find another great struggle. The government registration office has waiting times of up to a week just to receive a waiting number. From then it may be weeks to register as an official asylum seeker. Until then, no one is eligible for medical help.

In a once idyllic park you see the dire situation. People are sitting on the cold ground and trying to keep their few things that they have managed to keep together. Pregnant women, small children, sick people, everyone on the cold pavement. Our work as midwives is in great need. The specific needs of pregnant ladies or women that have just given birth are hard to be met under these circumstances, but we try. Women are homeless with their newborn baby or a few days before giving birth, and it is now very cold in Berlin. The situation at the registration office has become more and more unstable over the last few days — because of the cold weather and unrelenting rain — and the fact that people have had to wait for weeks now. Today, it has become very clear, that the idea we really need funds for is winter clothing and gear for the mothers and babies. We see so many without adequate clothing and a huge increase in colds/bronchitis/flu.”

GOOD GOD, I said. Listen, I know it’s calling us. BUT WE HAVE TO WAIT.

********

This afternoon, your Together Rising Board huddled together and said: OUR TRIBE IS TRYING TO TELL US THAT WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT.

YOU GUYS. YOU GAVE $300,222 IN 10 HOURS.

Because of what you did today, Heartline is getting its Love Wing. I just talked to Tara and she was on the phone with the Haitian contractors saying: IT’S ON! GET READY! YOU HAVE JOBS AND WE WILL HAVE OUR LOVE WING! (Did you think about that? You gave WORK to people today. Ripples, ripples.)

Our Love Flash Mobs are 24 hours long. WE HAVE THIRTEEN AND A HALF HOURS TO GO.

We want to raise money to help Ann and the midwives in Berlin buy warm clothes and blankets for the refugees—and even more. We are, right now, furiously working those details out. You can trust us with that. We will go slow and well and true. We are more careful than CAN BE IMAGINED. Your Board has an entire Stewardship Team with amazing and selfless volunteers and led by our very own Katherine, ensuring that your money is spent in a smart way, in the RIGHT way.

FOR NOW:

KEEP GIVING, friends. No penny will be wasted. Keep giving and we will get to work tomorrow creating the very best plan to get your love to those shivering, hoping, beautiful refugees desperate for a safer, peaceful existence for themselves and their children. When the details of our Love Project are finalized—we will tell you the entire story in detail.

And let us never forget — there is no such thing as other people’s children.

811 Comments

I’m sorry I missed the glory that is Love Flash Mob due to health reasons. BUT!!!!!! Last time, I donated $5 and saw that I could set out up to donate EVERY MONTH. I know $60/year is not a lot–and hope to increase. But I’m so glad I chose that option and it all adds up. Just wanted to let my sisters out there know the option is there 😉

Sorry, forgot to add, This month’s donation I do so in honor of Marianne, the midwife who delivered my son over 13 years ago at home. Every mother deserves to bring forth new hope in this world in dignity and love. Also to my departed Grandma, as October is the memory of her birthday, and she loved me unconditionally, a true mother to me.

Making a donation in memory of two miscarriages and in honor of my best boy, an angel sent by God that I got to adopt. What an honor and joy to be a mama. G, thank you for EVERYTHING you do and for sharing Tara’s story with your Monkees. #carryonwarrior Ever so much love from your forever Memphis monkee

once again, a Love Flash Mob that falls between paydays. Donation is small, because that’s what was left in my account, but heartfelt & dedicated to all the mamas in all the countries who lose babies that we in the USA assume will be “fine.” I work in a level III NICU, I see the things that can go wrong, and I rejoice every time a baby goes home. And I will continue to rejoice that babies in Haiti & parents in Berlin are getting the help they deserve.

My donation is in honor of all the NICU babies (and their mamas) that I have the privilege of caring for in a hospital with resources that allow them to fight for their little lives. Additionally, I give in honor of my 6 week-old baby girl who has opened my eyes to the concept of loving so much it hurts. May God bless this money and may it serve in His honor!! xo

The donation I made today is in honor of my daughter. At her young age of 13, she knows what sisterhood means and taught me at her young age to yell it from the rooftops, that women deserve respect and we need each other to be strong. Hold hands together and do the unimaginable. Stand up for what is right. That girl has a lunch table of sisters. All who have been beaten down b/c of judgemental middle schoolers. Girls of color, who are still called awful names in the halls of school, a victim of childhood molestation and rumors spread about her b/c of it, and a kid who is gay. She inspires me! She wants this Flash Mob to go past the sky today!

Thank you so much for helping us reach out to our fellow people. We see these big, bad things happening, and feel powerless and overwhelmed, and know we desperately need to help each other, and often don’t know how. Thank you, thank you… XXOO

Donating in honor of my 3 healthy, happy, beautiful daughters & for my angel in heaven who we lost at 14 weeks gestation. God bless this mission! One day I’d love to come & help you there, not sure if you need nurses, but I’d do whatever!!!

Thank you so much, Glennon and Team for showing up not only in Haiti (which is an amazing ministry) but in Berlin as well.
It blew my mind when I read the update….. I felt so blessed because I’m from Germany and I know that thousands of volunteers are reaching out all over the country to help as good as possible. This will not only be a financial support but a huge encouragement for all those volunteers. Today I feel it deep in my heart WE belong together and WE are in this (huge challenge) together. So thankful…

Giving in honor of my two kids – a monthly amount to use what is needed where it is needed. Realize that being born on third base makes me want to get more people on the team and ready to swing the bats. God bless all the mamas and their babies.

I gave birth for the first time at age 39 and for the second (and last) at 41. I was in a clean hospital, with a wonderful midwife, and never thought either my babies or I were in danger. I was surrounded by care and love. Every mamma and her baby need safety and love. Thank you for letting me know about Heartline. I just gave in honor of my two beautiful teenage girls — and for all those mammas and babies. Thank you, Glennon!

For those sweet Haitian mamas-to-be, in memory of my own sweet mama who will always be in my heart, and who travelled to Haiti in 1975, one year into med school and 14 years before me, to serve women and babies in the same way. She would have loved the love wing of Heartline. She was an OB/GYN for 15 years and a family doc for 30. She passed away in August. In loving memory of Dr. Debra Ericson. Love to you beautiful Haitian mamas, Tara, KJ, Beth, the Together Rising board, the mamas in Berlin, and of course Amy and G.

I’ve never given to a flash mob before. But I’m all in.
My small gift is in honor of my happy and healthy two year old son, who would not have made it safely into this world if it wasn’t for the care of my wonderful midwife and amazing doctor… And because had I been in Haiti, I wouldn’t have made it through that birth either.
And my small gift is in honor of this next baby I will deliver next June. Because she (or he, I guess) will be wrapped in blankets and kept warm and safe in the hospital and in our home. Because we won’t have to beg for anything to keep our baby alive.
This is the very least that all mamas deserve for our babies. No one should be turned away from a safe place to give birth and no one should be shivering with a newborn.
There’s no such thing as other people’s babies.
Carry on warriors. Let’s get our mamas rising together!

I couldn’t give yesterday because it was my youngest son’s birthday. He turned five, which is both totally normal and completely amazing. He was born with a heart defect and a very bad prognosis and we never expected him to make it. And now he’s in kindergarten and takes the bus and plays wii. So we were busy celebrating yesterday. But this gift is in honor of my youngest daughter, Anna, who did not make it. We lost her after 80 happy days with us due to a heart defect, even though her prognosis was good and she had been home and healthy. Love wins and life is brutiful. You’re speaking our language. Keep it up, sister.

Donating in honor of my 3 healthy children, especially my 3lbs 7oz preemie daughter who is now 14 years old. Also donating in memory of my neice and nephew who delivered at 25 weeks and are now angels watching over us all. Layla & Blake

I have a big family. 4 kids and a husband. All safe, warm and healthy. I gave, they gave. Emptied piggy banks litter the kitchen floor. In honor of all those moms who need a boost and all those babies who need their moms.

Donating for my four babies; I was able to birth them in clean and safe birth centers with loving midwives–by choice. And for my daughter, who will be giving birth to my first grandchild in December, also in a birth center with a midwife–by choice. And for my son and his girlfriend, who will be giving me my second grandchild in April. I don’t know where that baby will be born yet, but I am so grateful that they have the choice (and my daughter and I had the choice) to go where they will be safe and comfortable. And I am grateful that all my babies, grown and growing, are safe and warm tonight. All babies and all mothers deserve that–choices, and a place to be safe and warm.

YES. This warms my heart knowing there are warriors out there like you! Thank you for your sheer will to overcome.

I donate for my children who we fought so hard through many rounds of fertility drugs and procedures – they are miracles here on Earth – Isabella, Wylder & Paisley. They know their story. They also know they have 3 unborn siblings that they will see someday in heaven. I donate for them all.

Donating in honor of the beautiful spirit who left me at 17 weeks gestation… I still love you, and I am so grateful to you for teaching me that I am ready, I am enough, and I am forever part of the great I AM. I know you will look after a new soul for me. xoxo, Mommy

Thank you Glennon for sharing these incredible stories! These women and their work are truly inspiring. Thank you for reminding me of Haiti and Syria and the great needs of those who are suffering there (or beyond, as refugees). Donating in honor of my two sweet and healthy sons who had wonderful and safe births in beautiful hospitals. I am so blessed to be their mama, and hope that the donations will help many needful families.

I’m giving to the Syrian refugees in honor of my grandson, Peyton’s 12th Birthday. He has a heart the size of Texas and would be in Berlin helping, if there was any way he could be there. So proud of that great kid!!
Prayers for all of the brave, brave Mamas creating new lives, those who are helping them and for Germany and the countries opening their doors and hearts.
XO***

I am broken-hearted and hopeful and crying tears of joy and of sorrow. Haiti and Berlin and a thousand other places all over the world where our sisters suffer and often die in childbirth……this is a beautiful thing to do for them – to offer a safe place to be cared for and to be helped as they deliver their babies. I had my 3 with a midwife here in the U.S. I love the ministry of midwives and the work these women are doing in Haiti is amazing! I’m giving $25 for the 3 that I had and the baby that was lost. It’s a a small drop in the bucket, but we can fill the bucket together!

I’m so honored to help. Thank you for your words that pointed to love.
Praying grateful prayers for all the babies, and moms throughout the world. May we all do our best to honor them and keep them safe. Thank you.

I am donating today in honor of my four beautiful daughters, who all were born via c section, as an act of gratitude for the medical care that I have had access to. Thank you, Glennon for giving us this opportunity.

I will go to bed, knowing the Monkees are helping the women in both countries. I am so glad the wing will be built in Haiti. And I am confident that we can help the refugees too.

I remember when my daughter was little, I was disappointed that the bucket swings were ripped. I spent a few days complaining and trying to decide to whom I should write a letter. I didn’t realize that down the block a few moms had gotten together to organize a new community built playground. Guess which thing got done, the letter or the playground?

Glennon and Amy and Tara, thank you for giving us a way of helping big.

I am donating in honor of my two wonderful boys- both easy pregnancies and easy deliveries. And donating in honor of Lilah who did not get to meet her big brothers despite all the amazing medical care and prenatal care we have access to in the U.S. Thanks to my sweet friend, Dana, for introducing me to your website.

As a doula I’m donating in honor of two warrior mamas who allowed me the honor of attending their beautiful births this month. They are on my heart and I want more mamas to be able to deliver their babies safely like A and K did.

For my sweet Rhys, the boy we adopted after so many years of lost pregnancies and fertility treatments, but who left us before his second birthday. And for his sister Gretchen, who arrived just weeks after we lost Rhys, and keeps us going through our darkest days. May we keep the #PeaceofRhys alive by supporting mamas and their babies around the world.

I am donating in honor of my healthy boys who were brought into this world in a clean, hospital, with as many resources as needed. We are blessed beyond belief! But I want to do MORE! I have baby clothes, and blankets, etc and would love to send them directly to Berlin if that’s possible! And God is really pulling at my heart for these women and babes in Haiti… I’m a registered nurse and feel like I need to donate my time and talents at Heartline! Is there a need for people like me to go and volunteer to help in any way possible? Who do I get in touch with? For now I will pray for all of these women and children. Thank you for bringing this amazing organization to all of our attention! Xo Alison

I donated in honor of Beth, in honor of following your true heart’s passion, at age 50, trusting that the universe will neither lead you astray nor leave you wanting. At 45 I have felt lost and longing to rediscover purpose and direction, yet I’ve questioned whether or not I’m too old to begin anew. My children are 12, 15, and 26. My next steps are murky, waiting for me to see them. Thank you Beth. Thank you mama lovers and baby lovers and mama savers snd baby savers. Life-bringers. All of you. And you, G, for telling their story. And you, Amy, for going behind her back.

For my sweet boy, who had to come early due to HELLP syndrome, for my sweet girl who came after a struggle with infertility, and for my O.B. and all of the doctors, nurses, orderlies, aids, NICU staff, and other staff and helpers who gave us the gift of life with their skilled and loving care. My children and I are here today because of access to excellent medical care. We are honored to play a small role in getting that access to the women of Heartline and the other mamas and babies who need some loving, kindness, and care. Love wins. #grateful

I dedicate my donation to my bestie who lost her baby girl before she even had a chance to meet her, before she had a chance to breathe in her Clara Jane’s love. I dedicate this to all those mamas waiting, hoping, and praying for a safe delivery.

Donating in honor of my beautiful twin boys’ birthmother. I will always be in awe of your strength and the amazing love you have for the two precious children you brought into this world and entrusted to our care. Love always wins!